The Morning After
by kenina
Summary: Christie's getting used to the way things are, now, and she and Jim start to pick up the pieces.


**bDisclaimer:** Blind Justice and all related characters and concepts belong to ABC. This fanfiction was written for enjoyment and to entertain other Blind Justice fans. No profit is being made, and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended or implied.  
**Title:** The Morning After  
**Author:** Kenina

**Spoilers: **Four Feet Under

I woke up alone. The room was warm, mostly due to the sun filtering in through the open slats in the blinds, which were only pulled down halfway. I lay there quietly, listening to the drone of the television from the living room. I used to wake up whenever Jim left our bed, but apparently blindness had given him the ability to slide from the sheets like a ghost moves through walls. Without a sound, and without disturbing so much as a molecule.

The night before had been strange and awkward, but though I was still angry and confused, I had to admit I was glad it had turned out the way it had. After I had summoned up every bit of courage I possessed and walked away, all it took was one phone call to make me doubt that decision. I had made it as far as my sister's apartment when my cell phone rang. Jim's voice was soft, pleading. "Please come home, Christie."

"I need some space. Some time to think," I told him, desperate not to lose my resolve.

"Can we just talk?" he pressed. "We can meet somewhere neutral. How about. . . how about our bench?" In happier times, we'd gone for long walks in the city every weekend, always ending up on one particular bench in the park across the street from our apartment building.

"It's raining," I argued, though I could feel myself starting to give in already. "I just want to get some sleep, Jim. We can talk tomorrow."

"I can't sleep," he replied matter of-factly . "Not without you beside me. I'll be on our bench, Christie. You know the rain doesn't bother me."

"Jimmy…" 

"I gotta walk Hank anyway. I'll be there—if you want to talk." A long silence, then, "I love you, Chris."

"I know," I said, then disconnected the call. An hour later, I was sitting on that bench, holding my husband's hand and turning my face up to the sky alongside his. Twenty minutes after that, we were in our bed together, just holding each other. It had been a hard, awful year. Even before the shooting, things weren't right in our marriage. I hadn't packed that bag and left in some attempt at manipulating Jim, but if it caused him to stop and think, that was a result I wasn't altogether unhappy with.

My sleepy musings were interrupted when I realized Jim was standing in the doorway. I hadn't heard him approach, lost as I'd been in my own thoughts. We'd been married for almost 10 years, and he had only been blind for one of them. So, I found myself trying to make eye contact with him, trying to alert him to the fact that I was awake without saying anything. Which didn't work anymore, as I quickly remembered.

He stood quietly, listening for any sign of life, and his consideration for me melted my heart. Feeling the tiniest bit guilty for taking advantage of his disability, I watched him for a moment. Though a decade older, Jim was just as handsome as he'd been when I'd fallen in love with him. Maybe even more so. His pale blue eyes swept across me, fixing on a spot of nothing just above the bed's headboard. He blinked rapidly, as he often did now, as if trying to clear the fog that had been draped across his field of vision. 

"Morning," I finally murmured, forcing a note of sleep back into my voice to hide the fact that I'd been awake when he walked up. His eyebrows lifted in surprise, and he smiled. "Hi," he said, moving to the foot of the bed, where he sank down and, finding my foot, rubbed it gently. "Sorry if I woke you."

"It's okay," I lied. "It must be late—I've been lazy." Glancing over at the alarm clock for the first time as I said it, I saw it was just after nine.

"I made coffee," Jim said.

"I'll be in in a minute," I replied, and slipped my foot out from under his hand as I started moving towards the edge of the bed.

"Hey," he said, reaching for me. His spatial perception had improved over the past year, and he was very good—by necessity—at knowing where things should be, even though he could no longer see them. His strong hand found my upper arm, and the other hand came up to rest on my cheek. He leaned in hesitantly, and I allowed him to find my lips and plant a soft kiss before I pulled away. He didn't let go right away, asking instead, "Are we okay?"

I didn't respond, not really knowing the answer to his question. The night before, he'd told me that he'd changed, that he wasn't the same man who had cheated on me more than a year ago. And I believed him, mostly. But I couldn't say that I was ready to forgive the transgression he'd committed when he was that other man. "I can't answer that with a yes or no, Jimmy. I know I love you. That's enough for me-at least for today."

Jim sighed and released my arm. He acted as though he wanted to say something else, but eventually settled for replying, "Then it's enough for me, too."

I went into the bathroom, and when I emerged, Jim was nowhere to be seen. I dressed in worn, comfortable jeans and a cream-colored knit sweater, then padded in sock feet into the kitchen. Jim was waiting for me with a steaming cup of coffee in his hands, which he held out to me as I approached. I took it gratefully, but the first sip made my features twist into a grimace. "Not enough sugar."

Jim laughed, turning to get the sugar canister and push it along the counter toward me. "Sorry."

As I plopped another spoonful of sugar into the mug and lifted it again to my lips, my eyes swept admiringly up and down his long, hard body. His fashion sense certainly hadn't been altered by his loss of sight, that was for sure. His eye for fashion, so to speak, was so sharp that when we'd started dating, my friends had joked that he was gay. I'd known for sure that he wasn't, but nevertheless admitted that his ability to put together an outfit far outweighed my own. And though I'd never admit it, one of the things I'd felt when he'd lost his sight was an exceedingly selfish sorrow that I wouldn't be able to use him for wardrobe advice anymore.

This cold February Saturday morning, he'd picked a pair of dark blue jeans and a ribbed, collarless navy long-sleeved shirt. His feet were bare, unlike my own – I stayed too cold in our apartment to not wear socks. "Do you have plans for today?" he asked, breaking me out of my reverie.

I looked up from his midsection to his open, questioning face. I took another sip of coffee, thinking. "No, I don't think so. Did you have something in mind?"

He shrugged. "Thought maybe we'd go to brunch. Been a while since we did that." Saturday brunches used to be one of our favorite types of dates, but we hadn't gone since Jim's injury. Like so many other things we hadn't done since then. For a long time, I hadn't asked because I didn't want to push him to go out in public before he was ready. It was especially hard because he'd gotten so much press, and the newspapers had run so many old file photos of him, that anytime he did poke his head out of the apartment, he got recognized by someone. I didn't pity him because of his blindness, per se, but rather because he was having to go through the struggle of adapating to blindness in the public eye. A struggle that, by all acounts, should have been allowed to happen behind closed doors, away from cameras and prying questions.

Regardless, now that he was offering, I wasn't about to turn him down, I thought with a mental grin. "Sure…that sounds nice. Elizabeth's?" I suggested, mentioning a neighborhood café that we had both enjoyed in the past. 

Jim shrugged and tilted his head a little in acquiescence. "Sure." He pushed off from the counter and brushed past me, whistling. Oh, no, I thought. He was going to bring Hank? Jealousy—of a damn dog, of all things—surged up inside me. But how could I ask him to leave his mode of independent travel behind because it made me feel like a third wheel? I would sound like a whiny five-year-old. 

Before I could obsess any further, though, Jim squatted down to scratch the dog behind the ears and say softly into his ear, "You man the homefront, boy. We're going out for a while…okay?"

I smiled behind my cup of coffee, leaning back against the counter, one foot propped against the inside of my opposite knee. Suddenly and strangely giddy, I turned and dumped the rest of my coffee into the sink and headed into the bedroom to find a pair of shoes.   
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